


The City

by AngelGirl4212



Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 12:30:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20835494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngelGirl4212/pseuds/AngelGirl4212
Summary: Kalan reflects on his life in the city.





	The City

The City. All lights and sounds and the polar opposite of flat prairie land. He breathes shallowly here, trying not smell the smog, and thinks of home, where the only smells are animals and earth and you can lie down and bury your nose in the grass. He sighs and crosses the street. Somewhere, a car horn honks. Someone yells in response. He tries not to hear it even though, a long time ago, he stopped believing that people were inherently good because they came from a loving God.

He crosses again, looking at cars rather than at the traffic lights. Walks into a store on automatic and buys cigarettes. From overhead, Christina Aguilera's “Beautiful” blends into Rob Thomas “Ever the Same.” As if the dirty convenience store with the indifferent clerk were orcastrating a great, never-ending love fest if anyone could actually stop moving long enough to give a shit.

He doesn't.

It's almost eleven, although who can tell when there are street lights when there should be stars? Kalan Porter crosses another street.

He crosses to Church Street, still on automatic. Goes into The Cellblock because it's glitter and disco. He lets himself get touched, hates himself, hates Toronto. He lets himself get fucked. As always, he hates that too, but the anonymous encounter gives him something to think of that isn't God, isn't Alberta and, more to the here-and-now, isn't a record album with the devil and isn't the never-ending calorie count that his dreams have been reduced to.

He leaves the bar just after two in the morning. Makes it to his apartment with the uncoordinated steps of a drunk and collapses into a bed that's never been made.

Somewhere, he's too tired to find it, a radio is left to play. It's a slow song, more of a ballad really. _My Sweet One_, the radio sang in Kalan's old voice, _there's a battle going on so strong_. On the bed, with the-here-and-now cynicism, Kalan begins to cry.

The End


End file.
